The 2022 Olympic Ski Jumps will be introduced to the World during the Games in February this year.  The TV viewers will guaranteed be impressed by the grandiose facilities surrounding the jumps themselves, especially the football-field large futuristic looking building above the start houses.

Getting the jumps ready for the competitions is however like any other international year-around ski jump and includes lots of manual work and effort.  Here is a peak into the steps and challenges that the operations team faced these last couple of months.

Step 1:  Build one-of-a-kind ski jumps that meet all the FIS homologation requirements (not as easy as it sounds).

Venue ready in late October

Step 2:  Clean and wash the in-run tarps and in-run track before the snow season starts

Step 3: Install snow-nets before the first snow comes (if not, remove all the snow from the landing hill). Hint: The Olympic venue team experienced the results of being late with the installation of the snow nets (see photos)

Step 4: Make snow in the stadium/outrun and flatten the outrun, then create wet snow in the radius of the hill and bit by bit up the hill as far as the snow-fans can be moved

Step 5: Use the snowcat to push snow up the landing hill (from the bottom), creating a solid foundation to rest the snow on the landing hill on, and avoid the chance of any snow sliding down

Step 6: Make a bit of snow at the knoll (the flat top area) and connect with the landing hill snow

Step 7:  If there are problems with loose (sugar) snow that makes the winch cat spin, know what to do.  Hint: water the snow just ahead of the winch cat to create more friction (see photos), then let it freeze for a few hours or overnight.

Step 8:  Measure the snow depth across the landing hills, and move/push snow around to create an even surface across the landing hill according to the required profile/depth of snow

Step 9: Compress/boot-pack and smooth out the snow along the sideboards (the whole width of the hill must be equally firm to guarantee a safe landing area)

Step 9: Build the inrun track

Step 10: Build the perimeter fence around the outrun

Step 11:  Decorate the hill for the test event

Step 12: Learn from the test event and fine-tune the venue before the Olympic Games starts (this work is still ongoing as of today January 2nd).  Look happy anyhow!